Machrihanish
MACHRIHANISH: Military aerodrome (WW1: Royal Naval Air Station, later RAF Station)
Note: Please see the listing for CAMPBELTOWN which has much more information.
Note: This picture (2007) was obtained from Google Earth ©
The WW2 airfield was situated in the left-hand part of this picture, and if you look closely signs of the WW2 runways can still be seen.
Note: Not to be confused with the nearby small grass RN airfield CAMPBELTOWN, see seperate listing.
(HMS LANDRAIL 1948 Later Books of HMS SANDERLING)
After 1995 or so (?) known as CAMPBELTOWN
Military users: WW1: RAF Marine Operations Station
It appears that in WW1 this was also a 'mooring-out' Station for airships operating from LUCE BAY near Stranraer
272 Sqdn (DH.6s)
WW2: RN Fleet Air Arm Disembarked squadrons
1975: Known as a RAF/Reserve airfield for Strike Command maritime reconnaissance operations
Post WW2:
'V' Bomber dispersal airfield
British airline users: See the CAMPELTOWN listing
Location: S of Clochkiel & SW of West Dorlachan villages, 3nm WNW of Campbeltown, on the Isle of Kintyre
Period of operation: WW1 Military: 1918 to 1919 Civil: 1934 to ?
Civil operations during WW2?
WW2: Military 1941 to ? Later civil again from ? to -
Runways: Originally grass: NNW/SSE 704 grass ENE/WSW 777 grass
WW2: 03/21 942x27 hard 07/25 942x27 hard
11/29 1088x27 hard 16/34 914x27 hard
Note: Very often in WW2 the Fleet Air Arm demanded that four hard runways had to be provided at their airfields, whereas the RAF usually had three and sometimes only two.
1990: 11/29 3049x46 hard*
NOTES: In 1918 airship moorings were under construction as this site were intended to be a sub-station to LUCE BAY in WIGTOWNSHIRE now DUMFRIES & GALLOWAY
ON STATION
During late 1944 it appears that 1836 RN male personnel were on station together with 692 WRNS so presumably the men were fairly happy with this state of affairs.
USE BY THE UNITED STATES NAVY FOR NATO EXERCISES?
It appears that in 1985 MACHRIHANISH was being used by USN/NATO forces for joint exercises. Can anybody confirm this, and, if this is correct expand on it? This advice will be most welcome.
BECOMING A 'MEDA' AIRFIELD
* The 11/29 runway must have extended in or around the late 1950s or early 1960s (?) because in the 1960s MACHRIHANISH became one of four MEDA (Master Emergency Diversion Airfields) in the UK. The other three were RAF GREENHAM COMMON (BERKSHIRE), RAF MANSTON (KENT) and RAF ALDERGOVE (NORTHERN IRELAND).
I can never really understand why the MEDA concept was scrapped? Without any doubt the reliability of modern airliners, and for that matter military types, has improved no end, but things still do go wrong from time to time. Like the Virgin Airbus A340 that landed at HEATHROW with one main undercarriage stuck up. I can appreciate the costs of providing such facilities are considerable, but what are the costs, safety implications etc, of suddenly closing a runway at one of our major airports? Presumably somebody has done some sums, but, have they really taken everything into account - including massive incovenience for passengers?
SOMETHING OF INTEREST
In his book Air Ambulance Iain Hutchison quotes an account which is, for me at least, very interesting as it clearly shows that during WW2 air ambulance flights, and indeed normal civil flights, were not using this military airfield. Indeed, were probably banned from doing so.
Terry Clark
This comment was written on: 2018-01-11 04:41:10Macrihaish was unusual amonst UK military airfields because airfields because although it was operated by the RAF, the actual funding for maintaining the airfield was provided by NATO. I remember reading an article describing how this worked in the RAF Flight Safety magazine 'Air Clues'. I suppose in this way it would be available H24 for aircraft from any NATO country to divert into. There was up until the 80s so I was told, a weekly 'shuttle' service on saturdays by a VC10 from Brize and in the 70s, BEA used to run a daily (possibly weekdays only) Viscount there from Glasgow. I know this because whilst I was stationed at Glasgow in '72, the husband of one of the female controllers I worked with was BEA Station Manager there (BEA called it Campbelltown) and she often used to 'commute' to work on the Viscount.
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